Law Consulting Blog : Cordell Parvin's Law Consulting Blog : Coach & Consultant For Lawyers & Law Firms : Business Development, Career Planning

 

I recently searched and found three interesting and balanced articles on Sarah Palin's marketing and branding success. I will share those articles with you tomorrow.  I also re-read a Fast Company article The Brand Called Obama by Ellen McGirt and found a book Brand It Like Barack!: How Barack Obama sold himself to America and what you can learn from this. written by Gary Kaskowitz. If you are interested, Kaskowitz has created a website and blog I found interesting.  

I urge you to read the entire Fast Company article and learn from Ellen McGirt how President Obama revolutionized political campaigns by using social media. Here are my ideas on important points she makes.

• New, different and attractive are three things you want in a brand. So, being a young lawyer can actually be an advantage.
• The internet is a great marketing place and making your website more dynamic than other firms will get you ahead. That means using the internet to listen and then making frequent updates and engaging in a conversation.
• Traditional top down marketing no longer works effectively. Your website should be for your clients rather than a one way sales tool.
• Your clients are more empowered than ever before by the internet. They use it to do research on you and your firm.
• You can actually lead by listening.

Kaskowitz points out that one of the main things you can learn from Barack Obama is the importance of telling the story. In a recent blog, he says:

Mastering the art of appealing to people’s core stories is one that will serve you well and create incredibly loyal fans.

You and I both know that candidates can easily market compared to elected officials. Lloyd Grove recently wrote about this and interviewed Harvard branding expert John A. Quelch in Obama's Tarnished Brand. Quelch gives you a final point you must always keep in mind. I will change what he said so it applies to lawyers: 

After you are hired, you are only as good as the performance you deliver, and the brand promise has to be lived up to. If the promise has been very substantial and the performance has been average, that’s going to put you in a bigger hole than if the promise was modest and the performance has been average. Clients will measure your performance based on their initial expectations.

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As you know, I will be speaking at the Dallas ALA chapter meeting a week from today. Here is the Promo for my presentation titled: How and Why to Use Social Media in the Law Firm. I thought recently that the legal administrators likely know why to use social media. I have to give them the ammunition to explain it to their law firm leaders who are my age. I wonder how many of those lawyers my age have forgotten that they were reluctant to have a firm website when that became the trend.

In Social Media Reduces the Luck Factor in Client Development I posted last week, I wrote about Seth Godin's 2000 Fast Company article Unleash Your Ideavirus.  I was busy practicing law then and, I focused my client development efforts in identifying changes impacting my transportation construction companies and providing guidance before any other lawyer. If you can picture, one way I kept up with regulation changes was to subscribe to the Federal Register and skim each daily edition. If there was a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM), I wrote a draft guide or summary and then the day the rule became final, I edited it to incorporate any changes and mailed my guide to 100s in the construction industry.

You can imagine my delight when the Federal Register went on line and I could search for relevant proposed rule changes and the day when I could email my thoughts to the 100s in the construction industry.

The first time I remember emailing my guidance was in February of 1999. After several years the USDOT finally made final new rules on Disadvantaged Business Enterprises. I had three pieces of guidance ready to go that very day. I emailed those to construction associations in most states and asked the executive directors to alert their members. Some of the guidance is still relevant today as you can see from the Florida Transportation Builders' Association Web Site.

As I explained last week, today it would be so much easier. I would prepare for any change in regulations as before to be first to bring it to the attention of construction companies. But, instead of sending email. I would write a blog post, link to it on a Facebook Transportation Construction Page, link to it again on Twitter and link to it a third time on LinkedIn. As some of you know, I could actually do that all at once. If I was still practicing, I would also record a podcast outlining the impact of the changes and put it on iTunes. 

Depending on how much I would need to redraft my original analysis, what I have described above could easily be accomplished in about an hour. So,

• Let your clients know that you do not wish to inundate them with email and instead, they can join your page, or your firm's page on Facebook, follow you on Twitter and if they have an iPod they can subscribe to your podcast.
• If your clients are impacted by federal, state or municipal regulation changes, monitor what is being proposed.
• As soon as a new regulation is proposed, prepare an analysis or guide for your clients.
• The day the new rule becomes final, post a blog about it and link to your blog on your Facebook law related page and on Twitter. Also do a short audio recording podcast and put it on iTunes.
• Let industry association executives know of the change and provide a link to your blog and podcast.
• Invite blog readers to ask questions.
• If your analysis is long, don't put the entire analysis in your blog. Instead either upload a link to it or invite blog readers to send you an email to get the complete analysis. I prefer uploading the link.
• Make sure to have the usual disclaimers to avoid problems any hint you are giving legal advice or creating lawyer-client relationship with the reader.

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I have decided each Friday to share with you the blog posts I have been reading over the last week. As you will see most of them are not written specifically for lawyers, but the content is valuable for lawyers. You will also see that it takes hardly any time to read them. The more important time you spend is reflecting on how you can use the points in your own practice. So start by reading Is Reading Blog Posts Worth Your Time?

If you or your firm is blogging, you have to read Chris Brogan's Build Ecosystems for Your Content 

If you want to learn more about client service read Los Angeles lawyer Staci Riordan blog Puttin on the Ritz She shares a story about the service she received at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia.

If you want to learn more about social media read 10 Ways to Leverage Social Media

If you are blogging and trying to get your blog retweeted, read 13 Ways to Get Your Blog Post Retweeted.

Finally for this week if you are wondering whether you are spending time on social media sites wisely read When Worth Your While Isn't Worth Your While

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 I often hear: Social media is for younger lawyers not for experienced lawyers like me. My clients are not using social media sites."

Well, that may have been true a couple of years ago. But, it is no longer true. I recently read: Boomers and Social Media-Are you where your customers are? In 2009 Facebook and Twitter saw large increases in boomer users. Law firms and individual lawyers are increasing using both social media tools to reach out to their clients. I suspect that within a couple of years most firms will stop sending email alerts that many recipients do not wish to receive and will instead use social media to get the same information in the hands of those who wish to receive it.

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I recently wrote about the Strength of Weak Ties. In that post I mentioned that in 1983, Congress enacted a provision in a Federal Highway funding statute that complicated matters for highway construction contractors. I wrote about the change and spoke at conferences across the country.

At the time I was a 12-year lawyer and didn’t have the Internet to help with research or to connect me with weak ties. What would I do now, if I were a 12-year lawyer? How would I use social media and other Internet tools?

My main strategy would be to use the Internet to find things going on that will create legal issues or opportunities for transportation construction contractors. I would also use the Social Media tools to become more visible and credible to my target market and to build relationships.

1. I would have Google Alerts set up for each of my clients, their competitors, and highway construction, bridge construction, rail construction, airport construction and mass transit  construction.
2. I would continue reading construction magazines like Engineering News Record, but I would also get their daily electronic updates.
3. I would be on LinkedIn and I would start the Transportation Construction Law Group. I would invite all my contractor friends on LinkedIn to join the group. I would search for other groups that would likely have members interested in transportation construction and join those groups. Each month I would link to the column I wrote in Roads and Bridges magazine. When I did presentations I would mention them and offer to send the PowerPoint slides and handouts to anyone who was unable to attend the presentation.
4. I would be on Facebook and likely use it to stay in touch with my friends, as I am using it now. I would consider setting up a Transportation Construction Law Fan Page where I would post what is going on in transportation construction. I would use this page instead of sending out email blasts of alerts I write.
5. I would be on Twitter and I would use it to gather information, to build relationships with transportation construction leaders, influencers and writers who are on Twitter. I would also use it to post news and information contractors would find valuable and helpful. I would be seeking contractor friends to follow me on Twitter. I would also link to the monthly columns I wrote for Roads and Bridges magazine.
6. I would update and make e-books of my books on Transportation Construction Claims, Design-Build for Transportation Construction Contractors and Linear Scheduling.
7. I would do quarterly webinars at no charge for the transportation construction industry. I would record them and make them available to national construction associations and their state chapters. I would edit them and make several short podcasts.
8. I would consider putting my PowerPoint slide presentations on Slide Share.

Some senior lawyers do not see the value of social media. Others believe there are ethical problems with lawyers using social media for marketing. Kevin O'Keefe of LexBlog has written about both points. I urge skeptical senior lawyers to read Kevin's posts. In his November 8 post Kevin writes how social media has raised the bar for client development and in his December 30 post, Kevin includes a list of things to avoid doing that would raise ethical considerations.

Lawyers are increasingly using social media to market. It can be done efficiently, effectively and ethically. How are you using social media? How is your firm using it? How can you take some of my ideas above and use them for your practice?

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